As of Fedora 17 I am using KDE and so am somewhat new to some of the default applications. The default text editor seems to be kwrite and although there is an option for spell checking , there was no dictionary enabled by default.

As a result of a recent discussion on IRC, I decided to take a number of DE (Desktop Environments) for a test drive and see how much ram they used.

Test machine – Netbook with 2 Gb RAM

Method – This is a very casual test (sorry no “benchmarks”), I merely booted the appropriate Live CD, opened a terminal, and reviewed the RAM use. YMMV.

These results are simply using the default configuration as provided by the developers of the various distros and I made no attempt to tweak or adjust the RAM use.

Please keep in mind, RAM use is a crude measure of “performance”. The “responsiveness” of your window manager is dependent on a number of variables including graphics cards, desktop effects, and even sometimes a misconfigured or misbehaving wireless card. For example, on my netbook gnome-shell is using llvmpipe. llvmpipe comes with a noticeable performance hit on my netbook so while the ram use is similar to Unity, Unity gives much better performance.

Distros: I used the latest distros, even if they are in Alpha/Beta, so as to get the best possible video performance on my netbook (gma500_gfx).

I chose a range of distros to make the comparisons a little more interesting. I find XFCE uses about the same amount of RAM on Xubuntu as it does on Fedora (XFCE spin). They are at least in the same ballpark. Notice how Lubuntu (openbox + LXDE) and Crunchbang (also openbox) are “close enough”, at least for my purpose, at 165 vs 112 mb RAM.

The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the community a chance to help from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Linux-libre

Trisquel 5.5 is based on Ubuntu 11.10 and has a visually pleasing gnome-shell

KDE is also available.

Parabola gnu/linux is based on Arch and is thus a rolling release. The installer is a bit dated and hopefully they will release an updated CD in the near future.

I made a pair if user bars, feel free to use them if you wish

Rubber meet pavement

Booting Trisquel, Parabola, or a gnu/linux-libre kernel is where the rubber hits the pavement and many people will find it frustrating if, as with any operating system, they do not have compatible hardware. The two most common problems are incompatibility with graphics cards and wireless, although you could also have problems with BIOS.

You basically have to buy hardware that is compatible with the FSF GNU/Linux-libre definition of open source drivers.

While this may sound harsh, it is true of any OS, and while I do not expect everyone to run out and purchase new hardware, understanding hardware compatibility is crucial to successful future purchases.

GNU/Linux pre-installed

Many people buy hardware with Windows or OSX pre-installed and then have a bad experience when they try to install “Linux”.

The simplest solution is to encourage “Linux users” (yes you) to make their next hardware purchase with Linux pre-installed. We should support OEM that support Linux.

Home work

It is due diligence to research your hardware before you buy. There are several online resources available, h-node maintains a hardware listing of -libre compatible equipment.

Using that guide, I was able to find graphics cards, manufactured in 2010, ranging from as little as $10 (single head) up to $50 (dual head) in less then 10 minutes.

Wireless cards are a little more difficult as you need to identify the wireless chip, which is not always easy. I found USB wireless cards ranging from $10 to $20.

So for a little as $20 I could find both a graphics card and wireless card that offer decent performance ( video single head 1600×1200 ).

Again, next time you purchase hardware, I strongly advise -libre compatible hardware. Compatible hardware is not more expensive, will work with any distro, and performance will be better than a more expensive, incompatible, unsupported piece of hardware.

Recent experiences

Politics aside, hardly a day goes by when I do not see someone on IRC converting from closed source hardware drivers to open source. The costs are minimal and it is simply less hassle to use compatible hardware. For example, if you have a Nvidia card, and you have not taken the open source nouveau driver for a test spin, I highly encourage you to do so. It is not uncommon for people to find adequate or sometimes better performance with the nouveau driver then the Nvidia driver.

Again, if you use Linux, consider supporting the OEM who support open source.

Without the first option, console=tty1 the desktop (X) starts distorted, the desktop flickers and is partly displayed on the top of the screen. I could not get a screen shot of this. If you forget this option, simply run sudo service lightdm restart .

If you are getting a black screen, try disabling the boot splash (plymouth) by removing splash from the boot options.

The next three options acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acer_wmi.blacklist=yes enable the brightness buttons on the keyboard.

The acer_wmi module is both Acer specific and specific to my model (AO751h). If you do not have an AcerOne 751h, do not use it.

The acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux options are a bit more generic, but are also hardware dependent. Do not use them if your backlight works without these options (they have the potential to disable your backlight as was pointed out in the comments).

The last option, mem=1920mb allows more memory for the available for the gma500 and (slightly) improves performance. If you have 1 gb of ram, use mem=896mb

After installing, first restart X. ctrl-alt-f1 to get to a console, then